San Diego Police swooped in on the Occupy San Diego encampment at the Community Concourse at about 3:00am on Friday October 27th. Several arrests were made and the encampment was dismantled and the concourse was being cleaned by workers as ...
— John Gibbins

San Diego Police swooped in on the Occupy San Diego encampment at the Community Concourse at about 3:00am on Friday October 27th. Several arrests were made and the encampment was dismantled and the concourse was being cleaned by workers as ...
— John Gibbins

San Diego Police swooped in on the Occupy San Diego encampment at the Community Concourse at about 3:00am on Friday October 27th. Several arrests were made and the encampment was dismantled and the concourse was being cleaned by workers as ...
— John Gibbins

San Diego Police swooped in on the Occupy San Diego encampment at the Community Concourse at about 3:00am on Friday October 27th. Several arrests were made and the encampment was dismantled and the concourse was being cleaned by workers as ...
— John Gibbins

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Do you have pictures of police clearing out the Occupy San Diego protest? Send them to us and we'll add the best to our report.

San Diego  Police moved in on the Occupy San Diego protesters early Friday morning, forcing them out of their downtown encampments in Civic Center Plaza and Children’s Park and arresting 51 people.

Police officers and sheriff’s deputies in riot gear took action about 2 a.m. They used loud speakers to order the crowd, which was mostly asleep, to pick up their belongings and move.

The unsanitary conditions resulting from the unlawful camping were cited as the main reason the congregation was forced to vacate.

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Do you have pictures of police clearing out the Occupy San Diego protest? Send them to us and we'll add the best to our report.

“We received complaints from the facility staff regarding human and animal feces, urination, littering, drug use and damage to city property,” Assistant Police Chief Boyd Long said at a morning news conference at police headquarters downtown.

A caller to The San Diego Union-Tribune said the protesters at the plaza were “completely surrounded with cops in riot gear with guns pointed at them.”

Videos show dozens of officers walking on Third Avenue holding batons and walking in a line down the street.

Some protesters yelled at the officers. One man screamed repeatedly, “Why are you trying to hurt us?” Another was heard singing the John Lennon song “Give Peace a Chance.”

Protester Robert Stanley, 63, a marketing consultant from Pacific Beach, said he saw about 150 law enforcement officers move into the Civic Center Plaza.

“It looked like Napoleon’s operation. Each position was taken up by a squad. It was like someone moving toy soldiers on a civil war front,” Stanley said.

He said he thought the demonstrators should have been given more time to clear the space.

Occupy’s Michael Basillas cried when talking about the arrests.

“We feel violated. We feel like it was invasive. ... We are going to stay here,” Basillas said.

Oceanside Occupied

Fifty or more "Occupy" protestors in Oceanside marched about 3 p.m. Friday from the pier to City Hall, where they held signs with various slogans. They dispersed about 5 p.m. Police said the group was peaceful.

Police estimated about 65 people were in the plaza when they began asking them to leave, and 15 to 18 people at Children’s Park, which is across the street from The New Children’s Museum on West Island Avenue.

Frank Gormlie, one of the group’s organizers, spoke Friday morning to a gathering of displaced protesters.

“We are here to rally about the brutal and unfair arrests of 40 or so of our brothers and sisters,” he said using a bullhorn.

Police Lt. Andra Brown said people were taken into custody for a variety of charges, including illegal lodging, encroachment and curfew violations.

Forty people, who ranged in age from 18 to 50, were arrested at the civic center and 11 at the park. Most of the arrests were for obstruction and resisting arrest, Brown said.